Erica Salazar is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT and conducts research at the Plasma Science and Fusion Center. She is working on high temperature superconducting magnet design and research for the SPARC project. Her thesis work primarily focuses on the quench dynamics and quench detection of HTS cables for fusion energy applications. Erica has 8+ years of experience working with superconducting magnets for fusion applications. Prior to MIT, Erica worked at General Atomics as a mechanical engineer on the ITER Central Solenoid superconducting magnet manufacturing project. She commissioned and managed the reaction heat treatment process for the 120 ton, Nb3Sn superconducting modules. Additionally, Erica supported the design, commissioning, and operation of the final test station—where the fully manufactured module is to be tested under cryogenic conditions near operating currents.